How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[akd]

5 minutes ago, CAZmaj said:

The world is facing the prospect of its first nuclear attack since the US Air Force dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

This is a really, really dumb sentence.  Korea? Cuban Missile Crisis? Vietnam? Israel during several wars? Etc. All raised the prospect of warfare were nuclear weapons were an option, but rejected for a various reasons, some of the same that will likely lead to rejection of use during the current war.

[cesmonkey]

7 minutes ago, akd said:

This is a really, really dumb sentence.  Korea? Cuban Missile Crisis? Vietnam? Israel during several wars? Etc. All raised the prospect of warfare were nuclear weapons were an option, but rejected for a various reasons, some of the same that will likely lead to rejection of use during the current war.

Semantics.  It's not the first time we are facing the prospect of a nuclear attack since WWII.  But we are facing the prospect of the first nuclear attack since WWII.

[Grigb]

Time for new map or rather draft of the map (still work in progress) 

Some notes:

• Urazovo (top of the map across the border) - important RU logistical hub in this area so it must be leveled 
• Svatove (center of the map) - basically gates to northern part of Luhansk region
• Currently RU uses highway Troitske, Pokrovske, Svatove and Kreminna
• The other way is through Starobilsk but it is longer so using it will affect RU grouping in Severodonetsk and Lyshichansk 

[Grigb]

Looks like don Kodirov starts mobilization in Chechnya men of 1995-2004 years of birth.

[rocketman]

Interview with Swedish volunteer (now returned home) about his general view on the war. A lot of combat video. I think a previous interview with him has been posted here before.

 

[Combatintman]

4 hours ago, Huba said:

Helluva book you wrote there sir! A tad low on action perhaps, but makes it up by having a multitude of interesting characters

Working title for @sburke's book ... War Special Military Operation and Peace.

[Grigb]

Anonymous RU officer writes from front line:

Quote

...The main thing is that our artillery is capable of inflicting fire damage to the enemy in his tactical defense zone (15-18 km deep from the front edge -  SUBJECT to THE AVAILABILITY OF APPROPRIATE MEANS OF RECONNAISSANCE AND FIRE ADJUSTMENT - and there are very few of them).Based on this, the enemy avoids concentrating the main forces and weapons directly on the contact line, and places them in the second echelon or in positions of tactical and operational reserves.

 

[sburke]

6 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

Working title for @sburke's book ... War Special Military Operation and Peace.

lol  all credit to AKD and Haiduk for research.

[dan/california]

4 hours ago, Huba said:

Helluva book you wrote there sir! A tad low on action perhaps, but makes it up by having a multitude of interesting characters

I would like this, if i had any likes, but I don't so !

[Grigb]

7 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Anonymous RU officer writes from front line:

 

Continuation - discussion of current RU way of advance.

Quote

How to solve the problem of breaking through the enemy's defense and defeating it in operational depth? For this it is necessary to have strike groups as a separate element of the operational formation of associated units for whom offensive is the main task [adjusted for readability - RU military love to write complicated constructions to look smart]. These groups should be of an operational level, that is, a corps or an army, (and full-blooded, not 4 BTGr each) with their own artillery! What do we have now? We see how units or assault groups "gnaw through" the enemy's defenses and invariably stops at the next stronghold after the one taken.

This is because there is simply nobody to develop success.

So it was like this near Mikolayev, Gorsky - Zolotoy, then Severodonetsk - Lisichansk, now the same thing is happening at the Seversk-Bakhmut and Piski-Mariynka. There are no units, let alone units that would be put into battle in this direction, which would provide flanks to the advancing units, there is no artillery that would inflict fire damage in the depth of the enemy's defense, supporting the advancing troops. Without all this, a breakthrough to operational depth is impossible, enemy encirclement is impossible, and without this, in turn, it is impossible to achieve operational and strategic goals. What is being presented as a new word in military science, namely the so-called "grinding of the enemy by artillery", is in fact the inability to inflict DEFEAT [on the enemy] as a result of the lack of forces and means that should reap the fruits of this grinding and breaking through the tactical defense zone to reach operational depth.

Otherwise, the enemy is simply squeezed out, retreats to the next prepared positions and avoids defeat. And he restores losses in manpower due to the mobilization resource, which is far from exhausted. And even despite the fact that the enemy's losses significantly exceed ours (especially recently), such a consistent "gnawing", rather than breaking through the enemy's defense lines, will lead to the exsanguination of an already small army still far from the Dnieper.

The main conclusion is that a complete victory in the war without a significant increase in the number of troops is impossible – neither theoretically nor practically.

By victory we must mean the following results of the confrontation: 1. military - the complete defeat of the enemy's armed forces and the termination of their existence in an organized form. 2. political - reunification of the Russian lands - at least up to Zbruch (with demilitarization of the western regions), as a maximum - up to the Curzon line.

[Haiduk]

Wow!

This ASU-85 was allegedly took from pedestal in Poltava and probably might be used by TD. Its D-70 gun is shortened variant of D-48 85 mm towed gun, which in some number used by AFU, so they both have the same ammunition. It's a question what type of 85 mm rounds remained in proper conditions.

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Haiduk

[Grigb]

1 minute ago, Haiduk said:

Wow!

This ASU-85 was allegedly took from pedestal in Poltava and probably might be used by TD

 

Only old men go into battle

[Haiduk]

5 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Only old men go into battle

M113 is a peer of ASU-85

[Taranis]

"a Russian tank is towed, near the city of Izioum, September 17, 2022. GLEB GARANICH / REUTERS"


"Damage from the Russian attack on the city of Izioum, in the Kharkiv region, on September 17, 2022. GLEB GARANICH / REUTERS"

[Grigb]

6 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

M113 is a peer of ASU-85

I like both of them. Add to ASU drone + tablet with Krapiva and you have nice arty platform that difficult to CB. 

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

UAV vulnerability is definitely very interesting and it reinforces what we've been hearing in trickles from the front.  We have to remember that all the wonderful UAV videos we see are the ones that succeeded.  That gives us a false sense of the overall success rate of UAV activity.

I have been saying for literally months that UAVs have to thought of and procured like ammunition. Post Ukraine UAV mission planning will include things like sending them out in sets of three just so one on them lives long enough to relay targeting on what is killing them. The ISR bubbles of two competent opponents will engage almost like clashing grinding wheels. At the end one side has  a ruined tool, and the other has just enough left to wreck everything in sight.

Edited September 17, 2022 by dan/california

[Grigb]

Regarding the intelligence capabilities of RU Nats - Grubnik one of the key L-DPR RU Nat (previous UKR citizen) claims:

Quote

We stood at the origins of the [RU] domestic OSINT of a healthy person [mean right way of doing OSINT]...

If [we] do nitpicking, then not OSINT itself, but a combination of OSINT with HUMINT.

We have become the main and most effective supplier of intelligence info to at least one of the info sales channels [here sales channel - RU official intelligence>strike channel]. I was surprised to find out about this quite recently.

Alas.

The best does not mean good, the best means others are worse.

And that's bad. This is a diagnosis of the [intelligence] departments of the [RU military/intelligence] System.

And yes. This is not a reason for pride. But the pain. Our pain.

Discussion (if true but I lean to believe him for various reasons):

• RU state intelligence/strike services suck
• RU Nats do have comparable (or even better) to RU HUMINT capabilities in UKR (obviously they will expand it to other countries if there are RU Nat supporters)

[Artkin]

Don't forget about that little Su-100!!

[Grigb]

2 minutes ago, dan/california said:

I have been saying for literally months that UAVs have to thought of and procured like ammunition.

Correct.

2 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Post Ukraine UAV mission planning will include things like sending them out in sets of three just so one on them lives long enough to relay targeting on what is killing them.

In real life you send a cheap (means no fancy zoom/thermals optics) drone (or rather drones) first. Once it (they) is(are) down you know the limits of enemy big AD/EW stuff. Next you take drones with fancy optics and put them at a safe distance (for example above your own territory) to higher altitude and observe from there the suspected spots.

If nothing you have two more options:

• Go low and slow (terrain hopping makes it difficult for enemy to discover and hit the drone in time but it not easy thing to do for various reasons)
• Often you do not need video feed, a photo would suffice. So, you take FPV drone - it is difficult target so most likely it will send you at least one photo of the target before death
• Combination of two above - fast drone flies low to a certain point then jumps to higher altitude taking photos of the surroundings. It will be taken eventually but for the enemy it will be too late. This is how you recon heavily defended defensive position. 

 

2 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 The ISR bubbles of two competent opponents will engage almost like clashing grinding wheels. At the end one side has  a ruined tool, and the other has just enough left to wreck everything in sight.

It is true right now, but our knowledge and tactics are evolving. In the near future the one with better understanding of drones capabilities, more flexible drone industry and better drone tactics will win.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, cesmonkey said:

Semantics.  It's not the first time we are facing the prospect of a nuclear attack since WWII.  But we are facing the prospect of the first nuclear attack since WWII.

Kinda comes off like a millennial just 'discovered' that nuclear war is a thing.  Boomers and X'ers grew up with that gun to the head basically since birth - "Climate change? Sure if you want to wait around for a century.  Lemme tell you about how mankind can really kill us all in a weekend, son!" 

[sburke]

12 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Kinda comes off like a millennial just 'discovered' that nuclear war is a thing.  Boomers and X'ers grew up with that gun to the head basically since birth - "Climate change? Sure if you want to wait around for a century.  Lemme tell you about how mankind can really kill us all in a weekend, son!" 

why when I was a kid we trudged through nuclear fallout uphill both ways!  AND then we had to hide under our desks!

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

why when I was a kid we trudged through nuclear fallout uphill both ways!  AND then we had to hide under our desks!

Iodine pills with my PBJs!  Put that on your tweeter.

[Haiduk]

Friendly electronic fire %)

UKR serviceman: Fu...g organization! Some di...k decided to turn on some fasionable EW, of course, didn't warn nobody and all our birds, which were in the sky fu..g fell down. Thank you, bi...h

[Haiduk]

The guy, callsign Loki, from this known photo, was killed two days ago. 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Haiduk

[pavel.k]

My previuos little crazy suggestion to infiltrate into Bryansk, Orel and Kursk had not any feedback understandably.
But what about going to Troitske through Urazovo by taking this little piece of Russia federation? It is much shorter distance with good road.
What would be Russia reaction? Would be Putler forced to begin general mobilization due this very little slice of taken territory or even use it as justification for use of tactical nuke?